Shape-shifting pollution rules in Ontario’s Chemical Valley – The Narwhal

June 25, 2025

Aamjiwnaang First Nation has spent decades battling Sarnia’s industrial emissions. Documents show the Ontario government knew stricter pollution rules were needed long before it acted

Last spring, Aamjiwnaang First Nation hit a breaking point.

For weeks, enormous amounts of benzene had been leaking from a plastics plant across the road from the southwestern Ontario community’s band office. Long-term exposure to low levels of benzene causes cancers like leukemia. If you breathe in a lot of it at once, the carcinogen can also make you feel very sick, very quickly — and people in Aamjiwnaang were breathing in levels of benzene hundreds of times higher than what health-based guidelines recommend.

Read More: https://thenarwhal.ca/sarnia-ontario-chemical-valley-documents/